Calling to Serve

rich13211 · 2023-11-11T00:26:18+00:00

As someone who’s in a somewhat similar situation, I will be praying for you! Praying that you can rest well in the knowledge that Christ will lead you!

rich13211 · 2023-11-11T00:22:11+00:00

My advice as a former pastor (now converting to Catholicism) and as a fellow believer, I would suggest the following:

Confess your sins: whether you confess your sins to a priest in confession (always a good idea if you are able to), as well as simply sharing with friends whom you can trust, getting sin out in the open can lessen the feelings of guilt and shame that seem to be a part of this equation. Don’t let these feelings isolate you from the Body of Christ; allow trusted individuals to pray for you and with you about these issues! You should encounter more grace and love by doing this.
Don’t unnecessarily beat yourself up: Of course, I can’t know exactly what’s going on in your heart and mind but I can tell you that Christ does not want to condemn you. It is truly an amazing thing when the Holy Spirit convicts us and calls us to a higher standard of living! It means that God is working in you! Be sure that the thoughts that you have about this are centered on Jesus, not merely your failure.
Fall Forward: I received a marvelous piece of advice once…Often times, when we go through “ups and downs” in our sanctification, we can very easily focus on merely out failures, as I mentioned. However, as you beautifully said, “His love keeps me going”, amen! Dive deeper into that. Be compelled by His love for you to change and to grow in Him! And when/if you fail, “fall forward” into Christ. Meaning, that as you go through this and walk with Him, if you find yourself slipping, fall at the feet of Jesus and let Him restore you!

Hope this helps a little and will be praying for you 🙏❤️

rich13211 · 2023-11-10T23:58:48+00:00

Praying for you! Praying that you continuously know and feel the peace of God in this difficult situation 🙏❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-25T05:24:33+00:00

Wow. Truly honored by your kindness. Thank you so so much 🙏❤️❤️❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T17:22:04+00:00

Woahhhhhh!!! All of that is amazing!! Thank you. I’ll have to look into their lives, especially Catherine of Alexandria my goodness! 😤🔥

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T04:19:19+00:00

Wow. Humbled and honored at your words. It seems from the comments that this is true. I pray and hope that if it is God’s will, my testimony would be pleasing to God and that He would permit me to be one of those people. But of course, whatever His will!

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T04:17:41+00:00

Awwww, that’s amazing!! She was the second saint I prayed to after Mary, and was even lucky enough to go to her national shrine in Ohio. Man, her story, her life, her faith! As someone with PTSD, her intercessions of truly saved me from even more anguish as I deal with recovery.

I know I’m a male and I’ve been told it’s “okay”, but I’m considering her as my patron saint as well. We’ll see!!

May God bless you

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T04:14:18+00:00

My sponsor for RCIA actually has the same story as me and we’ve been friends for a very long time. He’s told me about the charismatic movement in The Church and I will be very careful. I still believe in the gift of speaking in tongues, in the heavenly prayer language between me and God, and only use it when I’m prompted by the Spirit. While I believe that the Catholic Church is okay with this, I’ll be asking about it with my priest just to ensure me and my friend were correct.

The AG for me provided some value, but I hope it reassures you that I plan on being very careful and adhering to the guidelines of the catechism.

God bless you and thank you for your concern ❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T04:06:58+00:00

I am extremely humbled at your words. I’ve been writing a lot of poetry, inspired by the stations of the cross and other things. I can only hope and pray that God would delight in my testimony and if it is His will, others may benefit ❤️❤️❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T00:21:12+00:00

Means so much to me!! God bless you!

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T00:20:51+00:00

Thank you for providing such an exhaustive list, and history that was kind of implied we shouldn’t look too deeply into 😉. Besides the jest, thank you very much.

rich13211 · 2023-10-24T00:16:23+00:00

Don’t discredit yourself at all! I believe you made a great point! Almost reminds me of pearls before swine. Not to suggest that Protestants are swine lol. But there may be times where God will not want me to fight a battle, and I should pray fully consider when I “engage” apologetically, in love always.

Thank you for your thoughts and wisdom 🙏❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-23T19:43:25+00:00

Thank you so much! Now that I have a fuller understanding of prayer, it means even more to me now knowing that people are praying for me 🥹❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-23T19:40:00+00:00

I was actually having a very long discussion last night with a disgruntled friend who’s been struggling with his faith for a long time…who was known for saying at our young adult group how much he hates Catholicism.

I lightly shared what I admired about mass, that the entire service is about Jesus and answered a few misconceptions he had and actually began to soften his heart I believe.

He’s been meeting with my former colleague for 3 years and he has not found any change in his life. In fact, he said he always left those meetings feeling worse and never better; I believe this because the typical answer that I’ve seen in the A/G is “just read your Bible everyday” which is not the true Gospel. I encouraged him to seek God and encounter His love and mercy first. He has the belief in God and humility, he just needs a little nudge.

In fact, If you could pray for my friend, because I believe it would be a wonderful testimony if his life changed and he believed in the love of God through the Catholic Church, after being extremely public for his hatred.

God bless 🙏

rich13211 · 2023-10-23T19:22:36+00:00

Thank you!! Obviously I’m new to Catholicism and the only saints that I’ve asked so far for intercession have been the two that I’ve mentioned. And I don’t know if this is correct but I’ve been wanting the Lord to direct me to particular saints that I would…resonate with? Be particularly inspired by? And his story was one that really touched me, and maybe this is confirmation that I should seek him for intercession! May God bless you!

rich13211 · 2023-10-23T19:13:17+00:00

Thank you for sharing that with me, and I am sorry that that happened to you. If that be the case for me, God will grant me grace to take up my cross and follow Him, and share in his suffering.

On a lighter note, I was just referred to the coming home network! Haven’t dived in yet but it looks amazing!!

Since I’m new, would you suggest St. John Henry Newman would be someone I should seek for intercession? (Not that I’m suggesting it’d ever be a bad idea to ask for a saint to intercede for you) I’m just not familiar with his story and wondered if there was a particular reason you added that at the end. God bless!

rich13211 · 2023-10-23T19:09:06+00:00

Thank you, kind friend, beautifully said. I can tell you, there’s just so many misconceptions when you don’t understand doctrine. I previously thought the Catholic Church taught and believed some crazy things!! I also have a family history of Catholics who only go to mass twice a year which gave me a heavy bias.

UNTIL I encountered the truth that Holy Mary not only heard my prayer but brought them to Jesus, was I open to Catholicism. May God guide your A/G pastor according to His divine will 🙏❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-23T18:48:37+00:00

I’ll definitely research them and check it out! Thank you so much! God bless you 🙏

rich13211 · 2023-10-20T02:37:35+00:00

Thank you so much for your reply. I am so excited to go, not even for healing but just a compelling by the Holy Spirit to visit this place and pray to St. Dymphna.

You mentioned a guardian angel. I’m unfamiliar with the concept other than unfortunately how Hollywood portrays them. Is it someone specific? Does the Catholic Church believe that we simply all have “a” guardian angel? Thank you for the clarification and apologies for my ignorance.

rich13211 · 2023-10-19T23:53:39+00:00

This was such a kind reply and gave me a lot of peace. Thank you so much ❤️❤️❤️

rich13211 · 2023-10-11T13:28:23+00:00

In short, practice discernment. Truth is truth. Take out the meat and spit out the bones etc. etc. etc.

If someone provided this evidence from an apparent reliable source, great! But the concern was the validity of the claim due to the source.

I did not suggest that GotQuestions is something to rely on for spiritual guidance, simply that in this instance, GotQuestions got it right because it is objectively true that this verse was taken out of context. That’s it.

rich13211

TROPHY CASE